The lasting influence of Netscape Time

One of my favorite documentaries, also because it captures so much personal reality and feeling of what it must have been like, it really inspires me.

Jamie Zawinski at the end of the Code Rush doco:

We're at the beginning of an industry and who knows where that industry's going to go? This could all turn into television again. It could be controlled by a small number of companies who decide what we see and hear. And there's a lot of precedent for that.

While you may say it's not television because we have content creators now, most of the mainstream consumption is on closed platforms owned by companies with the highest valuations ever seen in history.

Side note: It's great to see Jamie's nightclub has become a success as well becoming more of a live music venue which is even more impressive in the face of Live Nation buying every venue in sight.

The DNA Lounge compound consists of five rooms, two stages, four dance floors with independent sound systems, seven full bars, plus our attached full-service pizza restaurant and cafe.

I remember jwz posting on slashdot about open sourcing the browser. The whole Netscape story is sad.

I watched Code Rush tens of times. That was my time, I just had my degree in Computer Science in Milan, Italy. Before Mosaic and then Netscape, the only way to get access to information was through an Ampex terminal using tools like Gopher and Veronica. Internet connection was rare and hard to get, and the first browser changed my life forever. Soon after, the first ISPs emerged, and in an instant, access to information became available, even from my 10,000-person town. Netscape is how I became aware of Silicon Valley, and it took me almost 15 years to get there. It has been a lot of fun and excitement; I knew something big was happening, but nobody believed me or even understood me. When Code Rush finally became available on YouTube, it was like being part of the pirate crew from my small town for the first time. I still watch it once a year. It changed everything.

its weirdly endearing in the age of LLMs to see a word like company misspelled in a blog post

I remember when Phoenix was born because of Mozilla -ex Netscape- bloat. Now Firefox uses far more resources than Seamonkey itself even with all the bundled functionality.

> By the end of the documentary he is seen in retirement, spending time with his family and reflecting on the time he had missed with them. Thankful for the opportunity but wistful for what could have been.

Netscape thought that open sourcing their code will save them but it didn't.

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